Tag Archives: new educator

Last year, I wrote about my feelings as to starting my first live theory class. I just finished re-reading that and caught myself smiling and shaking my head. It is amazing how one grows over the course of one year. I will be beginning my third year of teaching now and thus entering my third year of IPA. Reflecting back over the time since I began as a full-time instructor, I can say that IPA has proven to be beneficial to my development as an educator. I will admit that there were times I would think “Oh no, I have IPA again”, but there were many others that I thought “I have IPA again”. My cohort is great and we all seem to be very receptive and supportive to one another. I have collaborated with several individuals to make my teaching/clinicals better or to even run ideas past one another thus getting an unbiased opinion. As I progress along in my time at NWTC, I am picking up more and more responsibilities. This coming semester, I have another new class—Pharmacology. While it scares the heck out of me and conjures up “bad” memories from my pharmacology course, I am excited. My mind continually thinks, “how can I take this course and make it fun”, “how can I take this course and get my students engaged”, “how can I help my students be successful”, and how can I make it better than my pharmacology class was? I am fortunate to have some colleagues who are great and willing to assist me or let me bounce ideas off of them! I can’t help but ask though…..will this ever get “easy”?! Maybe, maybe not….only time will tell!

One challenge to it getting easier and that I will admit too, is that I still struggle with saying “no” and it is something I hope to work on this year. It is ok to say no to some things, I do not want to be overwhelmed and I want to be on the top of my game. We shall see how this goes! 😉

Anyway, I am still excited to be teaching; I know I have found my true calling in life—-I LOVE THIS! Still smiling since I started, so that is a good thing! Best of luck to every one this year and I hope your year is successful!

Well, I have started my class and it truly is amazing as well as everything that I have imagined! I now know that in 4th grade when I said I was going to be a mom, a nurse, and a teacher when I grew up, I was right……I had it all figured out at the ripe old age of 10 years! HAHA! But, now that I have started teaching, I am posed with new problems that I never knew I would face. After administering the first test and hearing each and everyone of the students complain about it, I couldn’t help but wonder……what did I do wrong? I know it wasn’t me; I know the test was good and that the material was covered. What was new to me was the fact that it appears some students are unmotivated or have the “I don’t care” attitude. To be honest, this is shocking to me and I am wondering how I can motivate the “I don’t care” generation? What techniques have any of you used to correct this? What worked, what didn’t? I am hoping to find references and answers from you, my colleagues, to help me move forward…………..hope to hear from you soon!

Wow! It’s hard to believe that in less than 1 month (28 days to be exact), I will be teaching my first live theory class here at the college! While I am super excited, I cannot even believe how much my head is spinning! There is so much to know and remember…..but I can’t help wondering though……will I remember it all? As a new educator, one’s head and thought processes go everywhere…..it’s almost like one suffers from “shiny object syndrome”. HAHA! I love researching new ideas and finding great new techniques to incorporate into my class, so, if anyone out there has some great CAT’s or ice breakers or other classroom teaching strategies and are willing to share, feel free to share with me! I would love to try out more new things! Soon the spinning will stop and I will be thoroughly enthralled in my class! But for now I am researching and developing and pondering all sorts of educational things! Stay tuned……….my new educator update will come at a later date; for now, I need to finish putting it all together! Have a great day!